Thanksgiving in a basket!

Hello! 

It is less than a week until Thanksgiving! 

I decided that I wanted to do a small thanksgiving dinner.... At the last minute. 

We could find no one to join us for thanksgiving, so I changed it to a thanksgiving Sunday dinner, the Sunday after the holiday! 

While I have done several cookouts and had people over, I have never done a holiday dinner. This is my first one!

Now I tend to obsess how things will go.... I like a plan. A time line. And I like for things to stay according to plan. 

I'm not sure why I feel that this dinner will go differently than any of the other dinners that I've done. Really, the only difference is the holiday! 

I searched the internet for tips on the first holiday dinner, talked to a few friends and did a little thinking outside of the box. 

Here's what I did: 

1) I made a list of everything I wanted to make, and listed all of the ingredients. This was 2 pages, front and back!!

(Ignore the scratch outs, they came from step 2) 

2) Then I made a master list of everything I would need. 

(Again, ignore the scratch outs, they came from step 3!) 

3) I went through my pantry to see what I already had. There's no point in buying things I don't need! 

4) After I went grocery shopping, I put it All in a basket! 

Let me explain that last step.... 

I went back to my original recipe ingredient list and matched everything up. 

Now, some stuff must be refrigerated, and those are not included in this. But everything else is! 

Spices are already combined into baggies. Additional ingredients are written on the baggies. Those baggies are placed in groceries bags with canned ingredients. 

Take a look at these photos for a better idea: 

If some of the ingredients are divided, they go in separate bags. 

And then they all go in their big gallon bags! 

Here's the finished product: 

And my favorite part... It goes in the unused corner of my kitchen. It takes up no additional space in my pantry. 

When I am ready to start the pie, I pull out the bag. 

When I want to do the turkey, I pull out the bag. 

It seems so simple! I already feel relieved! I will definitely do this on future cookouts, holiday or not! ;-)  

Hope this can help you with your holiday experience! 

Xo Danielle oX